If there has been one absolute in the world of laptops over the last few years, it’s been the trend towards greater portability. From tiny, budget netbooks, to powerful and sometimes expensive Ultrabooks, thinner and lighter is consistently the name of the game. Sometimes, you don’t care about portability. Sometimes, it’s raw power you’re looking for. The Samsung Series 7 Gamer is ready to deliver that experience. Just don’t plan on carrying it very far.
First Impressions
Inescapably, the first thing you notice about the Gamer is its size. The 17.3” screen would make it big enough to start with, but this machine is also extremely thick, nearly two inches at its widest point. This is easily the biggest laptop I’ve ever worked on. Weighing in at over 8 pounds, picking the Gamer up feels pretty much exactly as heavy as you’d expect it would. The Gamer is more “luggable” than portable. You might bring it to another room, but you’re not going to want to take it to work or class on a regular basis.
In exchange for that tremendous size, you get some equally impressive specs. A quad-core i7 processor clocking in at 2.3 GHz, 16 GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M Graphics form the core of this powerhouse. For storage, you get a pair of 750 GB hard drives and an 8 GB SSD to help boost the performance of critical files. Throwing in a Blu-ray drive, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 2 USB 3.0 ports, an SD card slot, HDMI, VGA, and a DisplayPort gets you a machine primed to replace almost any desktop.
On the right side, above the keyboard, Samsung’s added a little wheel to control the performance of all that hardware. The no-holds-barred Game mode is obviously what this monster was designed for. There’s also a Balance mode, optimized for more typical computing like web browsing. Library mode turns off all sounds and the fan for a quieter experience (though I doubt you’ll ever want to actually drag this behemoth to a library). Green mode is for getting the most out of your battery, and believe me, you’ll want to use it if you ever unplug from the stupendous power brick (seriously, it’s the size of an actual brick).
I’m not kidding about that brick.
Open the lid and you see a sleek-looking black plastic casing covered in glowing blue highlights. Most of these highlights are convenient, like the keyboard backlight, which looks fantastic, or the capacitive controls for volume and wireless radios. There are a few glowing elements that seem to be there just to remind you that this is a gaming laptop. ASDW keys are backlit with a much less pleasant red, and in gaming mode, a large blue “Turbo” symbol lights up above the keyboard. These more obtrusive lights add an unpleasant amount of light in a dark room for little real purpose.
The Software
Gamer runs Windows 7 Home Premium, which is ideal for a gaming machine at the moment, because Windows 8 machines run into compatibility issues. Samsung has kept the machine relatively clean of the usual bloatware, but there are a few items on here, like Amazon Kindle, and an application that activates “movie color” every time you start a video.
One odd quirk I discovered is that you don’t want to change your desktop wallpaper the traditional way on the Gamer. If you use the Windows personalization utility, your wallpaper resets every time you enter Game mode. Instead, you need to use Samsung’s own utility to disable the Game mode animation or choose from a small list of built-in optional desktop backgrounds.
Performance
There’s no question the Gamer was built with performance in mind. In Game mode, NovaBench reports an impressive overall score of 1478, with system RAM scoring 244, the CPU scoring 708, and graphics speed earning a whopping 471. Basically, pick whatever framerate you want in whatever game you want and the Gamer can probably handle it without breaking a sweat.
Of course, there’s always a price for performance like that, and in the Gamer’s case, it’s battery life. Even in Green mode, two hours of video playback was the best the laptop can do. I shudder to think how fast Game mode could take this thing down. For all practical purposes, this is a desktop replacement with a backup battery power supply, but not a portable computer.
The Strengths
Gamer has a spec sheet that’s tough to match and sports performance that lives up to its potential. The gorgeous, bright 1080p screen and impressive speakers make for an outstanding media experience as well. Combined with a beautiful look, and accents that simply scream “gaming rig”, it’s tough to find a more impressive machine in its class.
The Weaknesses
This machine is simply tremendous. In size, that is. The size, weight, and battery life aren’t at all in line with the concept of portability. Gamer sports an old-fashioned tapered-key keyboard, rather than the more modern chicklet style. The multitouch trackpad is large, but oddly placed and sensitive. I find myself zooming far too often while trying to browse or type. Also, I find it odd that the top row has a bunch of capacitive buttons, right next to a Turbo logo that looks like it should do something (but is actually a notification) and a physical power button, all glowing the same blue.
Pricing & Availability
Series 7 Gamer is available now, direct from Samsung and from assorted retailers (including the Techcitement Amazon Affiliate store, where you can currently get it for $300 off the suggested price). The single configuration is priced at $1,900.
Wrap Up
Gamer is not the cheapest, smallest, or lightest machine you’ll see this year. The laptop doesn’t have the best battery life either. However, if you’re in the market for a desktop replacement with some serious gaming chops, you’re hard pressed to find a better option. The Gamer looks great, and it flies.
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